HOLLAND — Automotive supplier Yanfeng Automotive Interiors has permanently laid off 55 West Michigan employees as it plans to relocate its North American headquarters to Novi.

Debra Ortisi, executive director of communications at Yanfeng, said the company’s decision last week layoff the workers at the Holland Tech Center comes as the company seeks “to improve our cost structure and further enhance our competitiveness.”

The announcement from Yanfeng — a China-based supplier of interior components including instrument panels, door panels and consoles — comes just a year after the company announced 27 layoffs at its Lansing facility. In a statement to MiBiz on Tuesday, the company said it will now “move out” of the Holland Tech Center on Waverly Road, “as it no longer aligns to our current and future needs.”

“Yanfeng Automotive Interiors announced strategic changes to our footprint in North America. Our Novi, Michigan Tech Center is now our North American headquarters and main technical center in Michigan,” according to the statement.

The company, which spun out of a 2014 joint venture with Johnson Controls Inc., said the transition will take place over a three-year period. Yanfeng plans to create a Southview Tech Center that is expected to be completed by early 2020. As part of the realignment, Holland Technical Center employees will be offered employment opportunities at the Novi location.

The roughly 300 people at the Holland Technical Center will be offered a chance to relocate to the Southview Tech Center once it’s completed. The Southview facility will serve as the supplier’s “North American manufacturing process innovation center” going forward, executives said.

“This move aligns resources closer to where our customers are located. It also enhances our efficiency as a business,” according to the statement.

--Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that Yanfeng’s decision to issue the layoffs at the Holland Tech Center came last week, but the center will close over three years.